Seems a good moment to remind ourselves of renewal, as Edmonton enters that scruffy moment before Winter slouches off an makes way for Spring.  

 

April is ugly in April in Edmonton

but swans ripple high overhead

and we lift up our eyes to their arrows

as if we believe in warm wind

it is grit brown and slouched

but the crouching sun gains day by day

and we track it home over the river

as if we believe in those rumours

we could be lotus eaters unfolded

in leaf and green and soft caress

so at the slightest of provocation

on slimmest of evidence, we bare

our throats to frostbitten air

as if we believe in clemency

we mutter and chant spring’s litanies

as if we believe in the light.

There are sidewalks that front 97^th Street

where windows of Remand look down

on the chalk, prey to wind, spit and gravel scour

love letters sprawled on the ground

these are witness of history, wages

of poverty, ill-spelled portrayals of faith

that the sentence is finite, and less in importance

than  love that abides under pain

we could be lotus eaters unfolded

in leaf and green and soft caress

so, at the hint of reconciliation

slenderest offers of equality, we bare

our throats

as if we believe.

First published here a couple years back, written back in 2011 or so…